it's all a bit sketchy

Tacey Rychter is a Melbourne freelance journalist, DJ, and avid supporter of flummery. Ph: [phone] [email protected]

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Ethiopian Cooking with the Horn

Published: Broadsheet, 23 October 2012

Photos: Josie Withers

While Melbourne is working itself into a frenzy over burger joints and izakayas, there is a quiet newcomer to Australian cuisine, sitting patiently on the inner city’s fringes, on the cusp of an explosion of its own.

Ethiopian food is still finding its footing amongst the other international cuisines jostling for space in a hungry city, but the experience is unlike anything else.

Think generous, colourful lentil dishes that are bursting with flavour; rich, tender meat stews that simmer for hours; and warming spice blends of turmeric, ginger, cardamom and chilli.

But what truly makes this cuisine such a deeply fulfilling affair is the fact that it is literally made to share. The stews are ladled together on top of an enormous, soft, fermented flatbread called ‘injera’, which acts as a communal, edible plate.

Resembling a pancake, the injera’s sponginess absorbs the flavours brilliantly and its sour, tangy taste acts as cool relief from the spiciness of the stews.

Once served, everyone eats with their hands (right hand only, if you want to be polite) by tearing off a piece of injera and using it to scoop up a bite-size parcel of stew.

“Part of sharing on one tray is having a feeling for others,” explains Enushu Taye, head chef at The Horn in Collingwood. “When you share with people, you actually think for others.”

Speaking of sharing, Taye was kind enough to show us how to make a common Ethiopian stew known as ‘Ater Wot’. This simple little number is truly a dish for everyone: vegan, affordable and, most importantly, absolutely delicious.

Ater Wot

Ingredients 2 cups yellow split peas 1 ½ red onions ½ cup oil 1 tbsp crushed fresh garlic 2 tbsp crushed fresh ginger 1/3 tsp turmeric 2 green chillies salt (to taste)

Method

Cook the onions lightly in a medium pan. Stir constantly, as the onion should not become overcooked and change colour. After about three minutes add the oil, garlic and ginger. After about two minutes add the turmeric and a drop of water.

Give it another couple of minutes, then add the yellow split peas. Remember, like lentils, the peas need to be washed really thoroughly before using them. Rinse them under cold water 5 or 6 times, or until the water stops being cloudy, then drain.

Add enough water to just cover the peas. The peas need water to cook thoroughly, so just keep adding water as needed.

Cook for 15 minutes, or until the peas are properly cooked through.

Slice the green chillies in half long ways, right down the middle. Then add the halves (with seeds if you like a bit of heat) to the stew. Add salt to taste.

Serve over injera and share with friends. No cutlery, no washing up!

*Due to the long fermenting process, injera can be a little tricky to make at home (although definitely not impossible).

At just 24 hours notice you can pick up some delicious injera from The Horn. Otherwise there are plenty of places around Footscray, as well as the western and northern suburbs where you can buy a fresh bundle.

The Horn African Cafe & Restaurant 20 Johnston Street, Collingwood [phone]

Lemat Injera Bet Ethiopian Traditional Bread Shop 157 Nicholson Street, Footscray [phone]

Mesnoy Injera Bakery 77 Irving Street, Footscray [phone]

Cigarette Express Convenience Store 109 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy

[taceyrychter-blog]

Macy Gray @ Hamer Hall

Published: Tone Deaf, 1 October 2012

  September 21 2012, Hamer Hall

Entering the newly renovated Hamer Hall on Friday evening, you could overhear two fans talking: “I hope she’s not off her head like last time.”

Looking around the sea of mostly suited and dressed-up middle-aged Melburnians, plus a speckling of little ones being treated to an ‘age-appropriate’ concert, it would probably be best if Gray’s performance tonight isn't like last time.

With no support act to warm the crowd, the house lights go down and the crowd claps stiffly.

Unfortunately the lights dimmed way before the band managed to get themselves assembled onstage, resulting in applause fizzling as the musicians fumbled in the dark as 2,000 people shifted uncomfortably in their seats, enduring a long, terrible silence.

The audience was jolted into some form of life again once a crazy-haired silhouette ambled onstage, kicking off the music with ‘Kissed It’, an upbeat (if not slightly daggy) rock track off The Sellout. Gray’s trademark raspy wheeze, although wonderfully  unique on record, demanded some real adjustments from the  listener of her live show. The lyrics were indistinguishable beneath the croaks and husky honks, and as she ploughed further into the song it was almost starting to grate.

If it was any other singer, such a delivery would be completely unforgivable. But for Macy Gray, it was that vocal abnormality that launched her to fame in the first place.

The most interesting thing wasn’t happening centre stage. The headline star was indisputably being upstaged by her back-up singer. Wearing an eye-grabbing dress splashed with brightly coloured prints paired with an enormous smile, Shemika Secrest radiated charisma and boasted a stunning set of pipes.

Meanwhile, Gray skulked around the stage laden in dull black, keeping her eyes lowered and singing down to the floor.

Between the formalness of the hall, the stiffness of the crowd, and the unexpected stage dynamics between the star and the back-up singer – things were already feeling weird.

The energy of the band started to lift with the Latin-American vibes emanating from their second song, ‘Related To A Psychopath’, but it just felt strange to be observing party music from allocated seating.

After a breakbeat transition into the jazzy ‘Ghetto Love’, the pace of the set mellowed out to a bundle of intimate, acoustic tracks. Except for one guitarist, the rest of the band cleared off, leaving Macy sitting on the stage platform, singing while swinging her legs with the shyness of a schoolgirl.

The crowd sat through quiet renditions (sometimes uncomfortably quiet) of ‘Sweet Baby’, ‘Sellout’ and ‘Let You Win.’ It was an interesting opportunity to really experience her voice live and completely stripped down.

Gray also had a habit of shying away from the tough notes, pulling her microphone away from her face at the most challenging moment. It seemed to prove that she has never really been an outstanding vocalist, but more of a ‘character singer’, simply relying on her quirkiness and rare, natural sound.

As the band made their way back onstage, Macy pleaded: “Sexy people! Are you ready? Please, give me one dance.”

This was one of the most admirable moments of her performance – that she actually managed to wrangle this stiff, nervous crowd into standing up and acting like they were actually at a concert. Throughout the following funky numbers of ‘Why Didn’t You Call Me’ and ‘Do Something’, people actually left their allocated seats (*gasp!*) and moved to boogie near the stage.

Before the band would come back on for encore, the venue was forced into an a capella group sing-a-long of ‘Give Peace A Chance’. Gray then re-emerged with a costume change – a sheer black top decorated with flowers and a long sparkly magenta skirt – and reignited the party with ‘Smoke Two Joints’ from her latest album, Covered.

The covers continued to flow with Eurythmics’ ‘Here Comes the Rain Again’ and Metallica’s ‘Nothing Else Matters’. But It was a struggle to swallow her take on ‘Creep’, mainly due to the band’s decision to feature tambourine in a Radiohead song.

The final song was, of course, ultra mega-hit ‘I Try’, the most anticipated song of the night also prompting the loudest sing-a-long from the crowd, which Gray seemed quite content with, simply choosing to skip singing the chorus entirely as the audience took over.

Overall, it was an enjoyable show, but ultimately it unfortunately proved that the magic Gray managed to bestow on her recorded hits is mostly lost when she is handed a microphone.

[taceyrychter-blog]

School of 7 Bells

Published: Broadsheet, 25 September 2012

Don’t be surprised if the coffee here rings a bell. The new kid on Windsor’s block is the third venture for Daniel Zalcberg, the man behind the Artful Dodger of Elsternwick and the recently acquired Whyte’s of Glen Huntly. His new venture, The School of 7 Bells, stars its own unique house blends as well as a rotation of carefully selected single origins.

Named after a mythical Colombian school that teaches children how to pickpocket, The School of 7 Bells looks to continue along the Artful Dodger tradition of independence and cheekily straying from the rest of Melbourne’s cafe scene.

The small cafe is surprisingly spacious inside, owing to an interesting arrangement of seating that lines the wall of an alcove, leaving a comfortable half-moon of space facing the espresso counter. The décor is a carnival-esque pastiche of decorated panelling and stray knick-knacks. Shelves are lined with games, tattered children’s books and small pyramids of faded canned tomatoes sit on the open, breezy espresso window. In an attempt to categorise its design aesthetic, Zalcberg describes The School of 7 Bells as “old library meets butcher shop”, but the most important thing is to make people feel at home.

Breakfast and lunch is a medley of the usual suspects, as well as the not-so-usual: red velvet pancakes, a breakfast caprice salad and chimichurri roast beef sandwich with celeriac and carrot remoulade being a few to command attention.

Empty and abandoned, this lonely Chapel Street space has been a lost soul for too long. We’re happy to know that this little orphan has found a good home at last.

[taceyrychter-blog]

Ten Years On: Beck's Sea Change

Published: Tone Deaf, 24 September 2012

Throughout his long career, Beck has worn a lot of hats – the slacker, the experimental producer, the goof, the singer-songwriter, the ironist. As elusive and ever-changing as he continues to be, there was a moment in time in which he allowed us to see him with no hats at all, no gimmicks, no tricks.

In 2002, Beck released Sea Change, one of the most catastrophic, most intimate, most shattering break-up albums in pop music. In other words, it’s more-or-less a still-beating broken heart in the form of a compact disc. It’s been ten years since then, which is reason enough to pull the record off the shelf, dust it off, open up a bottle of red wine (you’ll be needing at least one each), and ponder upon life, loneliness, and that crazy little thing called love.

In 2000, Beck Hansen threw a party for his 30th birthday. His girlfriend of nine years, designer Leigh Limon, didn’t make the guest list. The widely-spread rumour is that she was caught out cheating on him with a member of LA band, Whiskey Biscuit. Beck never publicly talked about it but, whatever the reason, their relationship was dust. What was Beck’s loss proved to be a significant gain for music world, as the music chameleon emerged with one of the most heartbreaking albums of the year.

Sea Change’s content was emotionally arresting, but the impact of the record was largely due to its complete divergence from Beck’s previous material. Particularly given that three years earlier, Mr. Hansen was channelling the plastic end of Prince’s sex drive and neon mimicry of Berlin clubs, in the mime rap and innuendo of 1999′s Midnite Vultures.

A Sea Change, indeed. Gone was the dripping sarcasm, the ironic pop culture references, the nonsensical wordplay and experimental lo-fi beats. Right from the deftly strummed acoustic guitar of ‘Golden Age’ that opens the album, it was clear that this was a distinctly new and distinct sonic character from Beck.

He had departed from the careless, ‘slacker’ persona that first took him to fame (with 1996′s Odelay), and stepped into a strange, unseen maturity, with the nonchalance of simply slipping into a new suit.

What remained was a deeply personal, kaleidoscopic examination into the science of his own heartbreak: the torturous longing, creeping apathy, bitter frustration, emotional exhaustion, and a warm sense of catharsis.

At the time of the break-up, Beck penned the twelve songs of Sea Change and left them in cold storage for two years.

“I sat on these songs for a couple of years, because I didn’t really want to talk about my personal life,” Beck explained in an interview with the New York Daily News. “I’m more interested in focusing on music and not really strewing my baggage across the public lobby. But I ultimately felt like the songs speak to an experience that’s common, and that most people find themselves in. It didn’t seem to be self-indulgent at the end of the day.”

The sudden button-hook move of doubling back in an unexpected direction of seriousness caught fans and critics off guard. After a stack of albums packed with ironic phrases along the lines of ‘like a giant dildo crushing the sun’, the simplicity and sincerity of the lyrics on Sea Change was overwhelmingly stark in comparison.

Although often compared to the muted blues and psych folk of 1998′s Mutations, in a 2008 interview with Pitchfork, the shifting songsman said it was closer to the sound of 1994′s “One Foot in the Grave and more representative of what I was doing [in the early days].”

Despite such references, the tear-jerking honesty of Sea Change wasn’t wholly apparent in Beck’s previous work, though he insists that the urge for sincerity had always existed within him. Starting out at the ripe age of 14 in the underground punk scene of L.A.: “There wasn’t any place for me to come in and play a very personal acoustic ballad,” the performer told Another Mag in 2002. “That was a side of me I had to suppress. It took me a lot of years to bring those songs out and have the confidence to do them.”

It unfortunately would take serious heartbreak for that confidence to emerge. The one theme that Sea Change is so tightly wrapped around, with the then-32-year-old performer finding purpose in sharpening his lyrical arrows to ensure the most devastating effect.

Each song on Sea Change stares down his personal catastrophe from a different point of view. In the tortured ‘Lonesome Tears’, he asks: ‘how could this love ever-turning/Never turn its eye on me?’ The clincher in ‘Paper Tiger’ lies in the one line of Beck’s hopeless realisation: ‘there’s one road back to civilisation/But there’s no road back to you.’

Finally, frustration and despair melts into exhausted defeat within ‘Lost Cause’, in which Beck admits: ‘I’m tired of fighting/Fighting for a lost cause.”

“I wanted economy in the lyrics, and I wanted the songwriting to be very, very straightforward,” Beck said in an interview with Time, that likened the multi-platinum performer to a blues balladeer. “I was trying to walk that line where its not too clever. Just pure emotion… just trying to be direct and concise, which is all a discipline. That’s the kind of songwriting I really respect. It’s almost harder for me.”

Sea Change was recorded over a short period of just over three weeks, as if Beck wanted to exorcise his demons as swiftly as possible. Along with his band, he settled intoL.A.’s Ocean Way Studios in March 2002, and the cheap D.I.Y. gear, turntables and samplers were swapped for mournful pedal-steel, gentle acoustic guitars and a small orchestra.

The careful, thoughtful production and rich instrumentation was a far step from the Mellow Gold days, when Beck recorded his first hit ‘Loser’ at home with a $20 microphone from Radio Shack.

Beck chose Nigel Godrich to produce the album, who had worked with him before on 1998’s Mutations, an acoustic-heavy album that shares strands of stylistic similarities with Sea Change. Referred to as the ‘sixth member’ of Radiohead, Godrich had been previously sought after by the likes of U2, Pavement and R.E.M., and was known for his ability to create extremely lush, dense layers of sound.

Worried about the overall sonics coming across as too clean, Beck decided to record a lot of the vocals and instrumentation live, often just sticking with the second take. “There’s mistakes, rough edges and a certain grit and gravel to it that rescues it from being easy-listening country,” said Beck.

There was a certain grit and gravel emerging from Beck’s vocals as well as his voice audibly matured with new-found depth. “Before we recorded we listened to Mutations and his voice sounded like Mickey Mouse,” said Godrich to Time on the discovery that Beck’s range had dropped. “Now when he opens his mouth, a canyonesque vibration comes out. It’s quite remarkable. He has an amazing tone.”

Playful string arrangements were provided by Beck’s own father, composer David Campbell, plunging the listener deeper into the cold depths of Beck’s stretching melancholy. An affecting track like ‘Paper Tiger’ owes its magic to the sudden jabs of strings that cut forcefully through the understated, murmuring vocals.

Interestingly, the tail end of the recording process was hastened by a need to move out in time for Joni Mitchell, resulting in the band sneaking in on weekends to finish the record.

Released to the world on September 24, 2002, Sea Change was swiftly met with its share of overwhelmingly positive reviews, as well as some sceptical ones.

New York Magazine raised the question as to why the album was being hailed by critics for its ‘seriousness’, “as if that alone were enough to make it great art.” On the other end of the spectrum, in 2002 Sea Change was one of only two albums to be granted a five-star rating from Rolling Stone magazine, calling it “an impeccable album of truth and light from the end of love.”

Despite concerns from retailers of the album’s commercial viability, the album peaked at #8 on Billboard’s Top 200 Chart, and (as of 2008) went on to sell 680,000 copies in the US alone.

The iconic album cover, featuring Beck’s boyish face splashed with digital brushstrokes of pastel blue, pink and orange, was created by late graphic artist Jeremy Blake. The original base portrait was snapped by serial rockstar photographer, Autumn de Wilde (who went on to snap the likes of Death Cab For Cutie and Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley). The widely-recognised cover was actually one of four versions released, each with different vivid abstract designs laid over the same photograph.

“We couldn’t really decide which one was the best,” said the Sea Change scribe of the different covers, “so we just put them all out and let people pick which one they liked.”

Blake’s luminous, dreamy imagery reappeared in the music video for ‘Round the Bend’, and again in the form of animated video projections to accompany Beck’s summer tour following the album release.

First warming up to the release of the album with a low-key acoustic tour of the States throughout August 2002.  The ‘low-key’ tour quickly amped up before an unsuspecting Michigancrowd, when an hour into Beck’s set he told the audience to welcome Wu-Tang’s Ghostface Killah to the stage. There was no Ghostface Killah. Instead, Jack White – then experiencing an enormous boon in profile thanks to the success of The White Stripes’ own White Blood Cells the previous year – ambled into view and joined Beck for two songs.

Despite Sea Change’s gloomy material, the live shows were as unpredictable and ridiculously entertaining as any previous Beck iteration.

By the time he was ready to set off on a larger scale national tour in October, his usual band members were busy and unavailable to join him on the road. So he just called on the Flaming Lips to help him out.

“I like their sense of humour and their creativity,” Beck said of his new Oklahomabacking band to MTV at the time. “I think it’s good for the record, and it’s something I wanted to do on this tour.”

The Lips, having just released their own magnum opus, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (which Tone Deaf recently popped the cork for their 10th anniversary), doubled on the tour as both a backing and support band for Beck, as well as providing some much needed comic relief to cut through the weight of Sea Change.

Following the album, Beck’s discography experience a marked revitalisation. Including returning to work with the Dust Brothers for the first time since Odelay on 2005′s eclectic Guero, while the partnership forged with Nigel Godrich on the 2002 album informed a reunion with the producer for 2008′s The Information.

Ten years on, and it’s safe to say that the wounds of Beck’s heartbreak have healed, and while Australian fans are anticipating the arrival of the man in all his glory at Harvest in November, we may be lucky enough to hear a good sampling of Sea Change at Harvest, as songs like ‘The Golden Age’, ‘Lost Cause’, and ‘Sunday Sun’ remain a regular of his live set.

Revisiting the album a decade later, it’s stunningly clear that it’s impossible for Sea Change to date at all.

There’s no artificiality within the album to spoil with time – no novelty tricks to get old, no faded pop culture quips to expire, no traces of irony to sour the tone of the record. All that remains is pure heartbreak in its greatest simplicity, and that just doesn’t change.

[taceyrychter-blog]

Ladies Business

Published: Broadsheet, 10 September 2012

Melbourne’s love affair with its cafes is reaching epic proportions. New places are popping up faster than we can write, spilling out onto cobbled city laneways, taking over garage spaces and steadily trickling into our leafy suburban streets. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that in this city, coffee is the business to be in.

Mind you, we’ve noticed that an overwhelming majority of cafes are run and owned by young men. This has left us scratching our heads as to why there are so few women jumping on board.

Is Melbourne’s cafe scene really just a boy’s club? We catch up with the ladies behind some of our favourite spots to talk business.

Not Telling, Hawthorn – Verity Govett and Cathy Valentine

Light afternoon rain streaks the window of new Hawthorn spot, Not Telling, where the steamy hiss of the coffee machine is a comforting, welcome sound. With co-owner at Cup of Truth listed on her resume, this isn’t Verity Govett’s first time around the block.

Against a floral painted wall, a group of young mothers with their toddlers laugh over coffee and sweets. When it comes to her customers, Govett reckons she’s at an advantage.

“I think we [women] can have a way with people that the boys can’t,” she offers. “In Hawthorn, you get a lot of older women…who just want to have a bit of a chat. I don’t think boys would generally have the time to do that, or the interest.”

As to why there are so few ladies opening their own cafes, Govett is stumped. At a guess, she says, “A big one would be the hours and being a young female wanting to have kids…I’m already getting tired and it’s only been a week!”

Green Refectory, Brunswick – Sandy Green

It’s Monday morning at Brunswick’s Green Refectory. Bleary-eyed customers crowd the display case at the front counter, attempting to make a choice from the enormous spread of freshly-baked sweets, cakes and pastries. While the rest of us are just struggling to string the words ‘double shot latte’ together, owner Sandy Green has been here baking the lot since 4am.

Running the show seven days a week, Green hasn’t exactly had time to stop and contemplate her rare standing as a female cafe owner amongst a city of men.

“I think the core of the coffee culture is very male driven,” she says. “I’ve just always loved food and wanted to open a cafe…so I never thought about being a female making it more challenging or anything like that. I’ve got a real go-getter attitude I think.”

On top of a dawn-until-dusk workday, Green also has a five-year-old son with another one on the way.

She agrees that the gruelling hospitality hours that come with owning a business might be a deterrent to women who want a family too. But it would take a lot more than the demands of motherhood to stop Green from showing up to work.

“When I had Robby [her son], the customers were amazed, like right up until the morning my water broke I still got up and made the muffins, ‘cause there was no one else to do it!” she exclaims, laughing. “And within two days I was straight back into it and Robby was just in a sling with me all the time. We’d have him in a pram outside the kitchen door.”

Little King, CBD – Ellie King

On the other end of the spectrum, 23-year-old Ellie King isn’t too worried about the whole kids thing. With loose pigtails draped over her shoulders, she sits at a tiny table in the lace-curtained dollhouse that is Little King and mulls the whole conundrum over. Personally, her biggest learning curve has been mastering the assertiveness that comes with being boss.

Due to her cafe’s location, within an alcove of St Pauls Cathedral in the CBD, King has to deal with homelessness issues, drug use and police regularly.

“I’m 23, so I’m trying to deal with police officers that are double your height and double your age and just trying to get respect,” she says.

As to why there are so few women opening up shop, King offers, “I just see it as maybe being intimidated of what is to come and dealing with all the right authorities and trying to do everything yourself as well. And maybe girls are a bit more wise on how much work it actually is. Boys are like, ‘yeah! We can do it! No worries!”

The bottom line for anyone, she stresses, is a solid support network.

“Friends and family get you through every time…doing something by yourself is really tough.”

Milkwood, Brunswick East – Di Korndorffer and Alex Paterson

Like Ellie King, Di Korndorffer and Alex Paterson of Brunswick East’s Milkwood have copped plenty of condescending attitudes throughout their career.

“Owning a business, I’ve definitely noticed there are certain delivery people or service men who pretty much call you ‘little lady’ and then they try and screw you around,” says Paterson, chopping onions in the afternoon sunlight of their tidy prep room.

“And plumbers and tradespeople are so patronising, they don’t think you know anything,” Korndorffer chimes in.

“Women don’t think they have the confidence to do it,” Paterson says. “It’s an intimidating world because it is really male dominated. And I think we’re not treated with the same kind of integrity a lot of the time.”

Both Korndorffer and Paterson would love to see more of a female influence on the industry.

“I don’t know why women have always taken the backseat,” Paterson says. “I always find them better at multitasking, which is one of the key ingredients to being a hospitality worker.”

Galleon, St Kilda – Adele Arkell, Jackie Bega, Jessica Firouz-Abadi and Natalie Blinco

Adele Arkell, one of four female owners of St Kilda’s Galleon, agrees that women definitely bring something different to hospitality.

“They’re more inclined to be customer focused and to be really caring about the entire thing,” she says. “I think women provide more affectionate hospitality naturally.”

Joking that maybe the success of their four-way partnership is in part a “lesbian thing”, she’s proud of the fact that the group have been able to work so well together over such a long period of time.

“Women negotiate. Women talk. Women can be totally fucking painful too, you know. We definitely have a different style.”

If she can offer any words of wisdom to women who might feel doubtful or intimidated by the industry, she says, “In this country? You can do whatever you want. It’s all in your mind. I really believe that.”

Throughout our chats with these women, we twirled our spoons thoughtfully at the bottom of our coffees, trying to dig down to ‘the issue’. But we were floundering. In the end, of course, there is no reason why women can’t do all the great things men are doing with coffee and food – and they are.

The more women that set the trend of stepping up in a male dominated industry, the more will follow. Running a cafe (especially in a city of caffeine addicts and compulsive bloggers) is physically and emotionally demanding for men or women, and at the end of the day no one can get by without the support of family and friends.

There’s no reason why there shouldn’t be more women taking charge in this industry that we all enjoy, and that is such a culturally definitive part our city. We can’t wait for more ladies to step up and show us who’s boss.

[taceyrychter-blog]

Melbourne's Last Shirt Factory

Published: Broadsheet, 23 August 2012

Hidden in the heart of the ever-transforming Melbourne CBD, a sole surviving shirt factory whirs quietly on, its inner workings virtually unchanged since the 1960s. Barely signed, the Little Lonsdale Street factory is located opposite 1000 Pound Bend, but its vintage-wearing, latte-sipping patrons are mostly oblivious to the untapped goldmine just across the street.

Phillips Shirts is practically groaning under the weight of its own history. Hundreds of reels of vintage fabrics are stacked under hundreds and hundreds more in a brightly coloured kaleidoscope, an image that echoes shelf after shelf and towerd right up to the high factory ceilings. At first look, it seems like the life work of a compulsive hoarder. But on closer inspection, a sense of order slowly becomes apparent. On one wall, all of the fabrics are striped; another is all checks; another patterned prints; then simple block colours. As your eyes adjust to the sheer mass of it all, you notice that barely two rolls of fabric are the same. Each reel was carefully purchased and set aside for the day its specific purpose would arrive. This has been the way here for five decades. Crumpled paper tags scrawled with handwritten order notes and faded red stamps reveal their country of origin. Switzerland. France. Italy. West Germany.

A step back in time, the factory is a rare living relic of Melbourne’s booming rag trade of the 1950s and 60s, an industry that allowed many post-war European immigrants to flourish in their new homeland and one that eventually contributed to the city’s entrenched fashion culture.

Phillips Shirts is a classic immigrant story. Two Jewish Czechoslovakian migrants, Philip Phillips and Alex Peterfreund, built the business from the ground up with limited English, boundless determination and plenty of elbow grease. In 1952, the two friends started out cutting shirts on their apartment floor and as the orders stacked up they committed themselves to working 18-hour days for the next seven years. They bought the Little Lonsdale space in 1958, where the shirts are still manufactured today. Both the original owners have since passed away, but its clear their legacy lives on.

Inside the cavernous factory, the hum of sewing machines competes with the crackle of a radio that needs tuning. Fluorescent lights hang over the worktables at odd angles. The wooden floors are scuffed and littered with peels of fabric cuttings and wandering thread. Buttons have fallen between the cracks of the wood. Here we find Markar and Rosa.

Markar’s grey hair flops into his glasses as he concentrates on his chalk lines, carefully marking out the sections of the shirt. The white powder stains his fingers. He has been doing things exactly the same way as when he started working at Phillips Shirts 30 years ago, drawing and cutting stencils all by hand back then too.

Although she feels comfortable behind her sewing machine, Rosa is shy to have her photo taken, worried that her picture won’t come out right. She started working here as an eager 15-year-old, making tea and cleaning tables for two years until she was finally allowed to get on the machines and learn sewing. Forty-one years later, Rosa is now head machinist at the same factory. She’s sewn shirts here the same way for decades, as the city transformed outside her window.

The factory and its workers exist in their own undisturbed bubble, but the increasing pressures of the economy and foreign competition can’t be ignored forever. It’s a deep sense of loyalty that has kept the factory going all these years – from the persistence of the owners, to the devotion of its workers and a simple dedication to the way that things have always been done.

Fortunately for us, what remains today is an absolute treasure trove of unworn designer shirts leftover from decades past. There’s hours of fun to be had with the dizzying display of psychedelic paisley, Hawaiian florals and Austin Powers-style ruffled shirts.

And as if we weren’t already like kids in a candy store, the factory has just started offering a customised shirt service, allowing you to choose your own design and material from the enormous vintage archive.

The factory is a bizarre time-slip in the centre of our CBD, but it’s living proof that local, quality manufacturing in Melbourne still has a heartbeat, and hopefully, a future.

[taceyrychter-blog]

The Cheese Cave

Published: Broadsheet, 21 August 2012

Inspired by the local fromageries of Paris, husband-and-wife team Sarah and Owen Watson finally decided to leave the corporate world behind and open up the cheese emporium of their dreams.

The pride of the shop lines the side wall, ranging from hard, aged cheeses across to the fresher, soft varieties. Names like ‘Herve Mons Comte’ or ‘l’Artisan Fermier’ might intimidate the average cheddar nibbler, but the Cheese Cave is anything but pretentious.

Whether you’re making a platter for a dinner party or just after something with your lunch, the staff are warm and glad to talk you through the range and even let you have a taste while you think. If you feel like taking your time, there are handy information cards placed next to every cheese, describing the flavours, its region, which animal the milk comes from and even which kinds of wines and accompaniments to match it with.

The shop is laden with an enticing array of deli-style accompaniments like pickled beetroot, dried fruit, liver pates, chorizo, dips, fresh baguettes wrapped in paper and, of course, the humble cracker.

Share a cheese-board with a friend in the cafe or the new adjoined dining room, or order from their full breakfast and lunch menu. Breakfast warmers include the traditional porridge with winter compote or the omelette au fromage. The two stand-outs of the lunch menu are the ‘Dairy-man’s’ and the ‘Dairy-maid’s Lunch’ – plates of cooked eggs, sourdough and the cheese of the day with sides that differ in degrees of meatiness and daintiness.

You really are spoilt for choice at this lovely fromagerie. But at its essence, The Cheese Cave is really about the simpler pleasures: good cheese, a fresh baguette and a spot to watch the world go by.

429-431 Toorak Road Toorak

www.thecheesecave.com.au

[phone]

[taceyrychter-blog]

The Duchess Does Dinner

Published: Broadsheet, 15 August 2012

In addition to her plate-lickingly grand breakfast and lunch, that noble lady of the west, the Duchess of Spotswood, is now letting us stay for dinner.

“Before we opened the café, it was always something we wanted to do – night times more than breakfast,” explains chef Andrew Gale, who co-owns the Duchess with his wife Bobby Green. “It’s the next step, a natural progression. It gives us a chance to show the things that we’re able to do food-wise.”

The items on the three-course prix-fixe menu progress week-by-week, shifting to reflect what’s available seasonally or the whims of the chef that day.

What you can expect is creative British fare and nostalgic dishes; the kind that warm you to your core and radiate back out through your rosy cheeks.

On a cold night, you could start with the pork-stuffed smoked pig’s trotter with creamy sauce gribiche, or the flavour-bursting mushroom broth with shaved vegetables and sautéed king browns, watching the plume of steam rise as the waiter pours it for you at your table.

And if it’s comfort food you need, you can’t go past the bestseller – a tender ox-cheek braised in Guinness. “It’s good, solid food, you know?” says Gale. “I think we have quite a good offer…not saying that anyone else is not doing good food in the west, but certainly not the style that we’re doing.”

And of course, an evening with the Duchess must end sweetly, be it with the brioche doughnuts with fig jam and honeycomb or Gale’s trifle.

“I remember every Christmas there would be trifle at my grandma’s house,” recalls Gale, who grew up in Bracknell, a town 50 kilometres west of London. His version features layers including beetroot sponge, apply jelly and deep-fried crispy chocolate biscuit. Indeed, this trifle may have been slightly tweaked from Grandma’s original recipe.

“We’re just trying to do something a little bit different,” says Gale. “It’s just my interpretation of an English restaurant in Australia. We embrace both kinds of cultures. That seems to be working okay so far.”

Dinner is available from Thursday to Saturday.

[taceyrychter-blog]

Review: The Smashing Pumpkins @ Hisense Arena

Published: Tone Deaf

August 2 2012

As the lights dim on Melbourne’s Hisense Arena, the vibe is already feeling a little odd.

The floor crowd is patchy in parts, entire sections of the upper side seats are curtained off; and there are plenty of plastic seats left untouched. The crowd cheers when the silhouetted band members emerge and pick up their instruments, but the applause soon dies down and the space becomes awkwardly quiet. A 10,000 capacity sporting arena with soaring ceilings is a tough venue to wrangle, and the Pumpkins have their work cut out for them.

The first bars of ‘Quasar’, from their new 2012 album Oceania, roll into the arena with the force of a sudden thunderstorm. Frontman and sole original Pumpkin, Billy Corgan is as commanding as he ever was, his unmistakable vocals soaring forcefully throughout the expansive arena.

It’s quickly obvious that this show is not just about extraordinary sound, but the full experience of the visuals as well. Hanging above the band is an enormous, inflated globe that embodies abstract and psychedelic video projections throughout the night.

As drummer Mike Byrne unleashes a hail of sound, each clash of his drumsticks is synchronised perfectly with a complex lighting show, flashing blinding red and white behind the band.

Without a word to the crowd, the Pumpkins jump straight into ‘Panopticon’, the second song on Oceania. There was no official announcement, but Corgan intends to play out the latest album in full.

From the point of down-tempo track ‘The Celestials’, the first single on the album, the energy starts to gradually dissipate. It continues declining for the next ten songs of Oceania, and you can literally see the interest waning. There are people talking in the upper stalls and others flicking through Facebook albums on their phones. Patrons are milling through exits, ambling back with arms full of beer without a shred of urgency.

After the seventh track, ‘Pinwheels’, Corgan politely announces, “we’re halfway through our Oceania album.” It sounds like he means, ‘thank you for your patience, it’s nearly over now.’

A fan responds, “play ‘Zero’!” Well said.

Not to give the wrong impression – the Oceania segment was pleasant enough. The songs are stunning, the band is wickedly tight, and Billy Corgan clearly still a good frontman. But the legions of fans aren’t here for new age Pumpkins. The largely Generation X assembly are lifted straight from Nirvana-era 90s and still clutching their flannel shirts to prove it.

Oceania finally wraps up with ‘Wildflower’, and the crowd is anxious to see what Corgan and Co will be pulling out next. Will he continue snubbing all his hits? If so, what has he got planned for the next hour? We’re answered by the drone of slow, marching snares. Mixed with drifts of psychedelic guitar, they continue on mysteriously, until the words: ‘Ground control to Major Tom.’ The crowd cheers, surprised but satisfied with the set’s change in direction.

At a similar pace to the Bowie original, it’s not a complete rework, but ‘Space Oddity’ as honestly as Smashing Pumpkins can do it: steeped in grungy sludge and topped with shredding solos. It’s a nice moment though, the spattering of lights behind Corgan like stars, as he sings of drifting in space under a big, purple moon that hangs above the stage.

When the first bars of ‘XYU’ ring out, it’s as if Dr. Frankenstein has flipped the switch on this comatose crowd, a surge of electricity rippling through the arena and jolting the fans to life. Within the song Corgan turns playful and dangerous, letting loose with his trademark guttural screams.

The sudden spike in energy nearly shoots through the roof when the Pumpkins bring in mega-hit, ‘Tonight, Tonight’. “Alright, alright,” he acknowledges. “Now we’re having a party.”

Having patiently indulged his desire to play his new album from start to finish, Corgan is now indulging us – with every hit in the catalogue they can fit into the hour they have left.

The iconic beating toms are met with thunderous approval from the audience, adding ‘Bullet with Butterfly Wings’ to the hit parade the venue are now gratefully receiving.

After ‘Soot and Stars’, Corgan steps up to the microphone and announces, “we’re gonna play a song that I don’t think has been played at a Smashing Pumpkins show in about 18 years. Not that you bloody well deserve it…we learned this song today just for you. Hope you like it.”

And with that, the beautifully dazed chords of ‘Luna’ sing out for the first time in over a decade. If anyone was really griping about Corgan’s ‘self-indulgence’ during the first half, surely they’re eating their words now.

The show closes with ‘Today’, in which the crowd enthusiastically echoes every word. The Pumpkins momentarily disappear offstage, returning for a triplet encore of ‘Zero’ (finally!), ‘Ava Adore’ and ‘Cherub Rock’.

You’ve got to hand it to Billy Corgan. Not only did he conquer the echoey, sexless multi-purpose beast that is Hisense Arena, but he completely outwitted the stubborn Generation X-ers, forcing them to actually shut up and listen to his new material (in full), while still leaving them breathless and properly satisfied.

Tonight, The Smashing Pumpkins proved that they’re more than just a relic of the last millennium, but still howling with a force that should leave plenty of today’s bands trembling.

[taceyrychter-blog]

Smart, Alec Hatters

Published: Milk Bar Mag, 8 August 2012

  Nestled on Smith Street, Fitzroy is Smart, Alec, a gentleman’s hat shop. It’s hardly out of place considering the vintage-adoring neighbourhood, but passer-bys commonly find themselves snagged at the window, cracking a curious grin as they peer within.

Inside, your eyes leap to the obvious delights. The wooden shelves lined with inky-black bowlers and shadowy akubras. A mariachi sombrero hangs majestically overhead. An airy white panama fastened with a tropical ribbon. A small stack of Moroccan fezzes of the softest felt.

Then you absorb the little things. Moustache wax. Handmade brass pins. Cufflinks featuring tiny street-maps of Fitzroy.

A hugely popular item is a walking stick with a screw-off handle, revealing a hidden flask inside.

“We always sell out of those,” laughs Smart, Alec owner, Michael Albert.

The store is about much more than men’s hats, although they do that exceptionally well. It’s riding the swelling resurgence in classic couture, specifically for the modern gentleman.

A self-described ‘serial dandy’, Michael wants to help other Melbourne fellows discover their inner chap.

“A lot of young men, some old men too, are just desperate for advice,” he says. “The problem is, most men who think hats don’t suit them have had a poor selection. Either that, or bad advice. I think it’s like anything – when well selected any couture always compliments the wearer. I’m a zealot in that regard.”

Michael is encouraging men to take pride in their appearance through a classic approach.

“I think a lot of men think that being a dandy is being feminine. And it’s not. It’s actually a masculine elegance.”

Besides being a bastion of old-fashioned masculinity, Smart, Alec is also a reaction to the generic, mass-produced attire flooding our markets, as well as enormous waste that comes with it.

An avid vintage-collector, it pains someone like Michael to watch gorgeous garments binned just because they’re past someone else’s use-by date.

Smart, Alec stocks an eclectic mix of unworn vintage and current styles, but also carries a small range of second-hand wear that they are happy to restore as good as new.

But if you can’t find exactly what you’re looking for, don’t be afraid to ask. These mad hatters can roll their sleeves up and customise a hat just for you, or even create one from the ground-up.

“I love the ones that come into the shop and say, ‘Right. Michael York. Opening scene of Cabaret. That hat he’s wearing. Can you get me one of those?’ Michael recounts, laughing. “I love my clientele. They’re a funny lot.”

Michael is used to the strangest of requests, but is more than happy to oblige in a bit of silliness. Looking ahead, he’s planning to rejig the shop with even more oddities and whimsical, quirky pieces.

“Sometime we take ourselves way too seriously. Why not have a bit of fun with it?”

Smart, Alec is at 71 Smith St, Fitzroy. For more information visit smartalechatters.com.au.

[taceyrychter-blog]

Light Years Lingerie

Published: Broadsheet, 6 August 2012

It’s happening. You stand before each other by the bed for the first time. You unbutton your blouse. He starts peeling off his chinos. Suddenly, panic. What underwear did you throw on? Was it the frilly number that makes your behind look like a slutty wedding cake? Or the one with cartoon zebras stampeding over your bits? Or the notorious granny panties, clinging to your navel like a big flesh-coloured stop sign?

Prepare to have your knickers untwisted by new boutique lingerie line, Light Years.

This comfortable collection radiates a quiet cool, with an edge. Created by Melbourne graphic designer Annika Seidel, Light Years is here to fill the huge void in the market between over-the-top, sexed-up lingerie and candy-coloured kiddie prints stamped with screaming brand logos.

Entering the fashion realm for the first time, Seidel’s design instincts have led her to complement the natural, feminine shape through linear styles and angular seams, and subtle stud detailing for a special finish. The debut collection not only features a select range of bras and underwear, but tanks and tees designed to match the other pieces or even to be worn as outerwear.

Using a striking colour palette of acid yellows, blacks, creams and greys, the modern look is matched with a classic, tasteful modesty. With geometric panelling of sheer mesh carefully grazing the thigh or just below the breast, it’s about sexuality through suggestion, not exhibition.

While supporting local industry by manufacturing in Coburg (in Melbourne’s inner north), the range is also designed for the comfort of everyday wear. Materials such as cotton and disco spandex provide softness, stretch, and breathability and the smooth, body-contouring fabric allows for subtle wear under any outfit.

After a few years of hesitation, Seidel finally decided to pursue the lingerie line after hearing her own underwear grievances repeatedly echoed by other women. Since releasing her catalogue, she’s now being pressed by friends to work on a men’s range, or more desperately, maternity wear. But they’ll just have to wait, as Seidel is busy already putting together the follow-up Light Years collection for next season.

Even before its release, Light Years is already gathering momentum thanks to a bizarre promotional video produced by local film company, The Apiary, featuring purple cabbages, girls spinning in piles of gravel, mysterious Russian narration and some outstanding visual design.

Clocking over 10,000 views on Vimeo so far, the video has already been featured by The Design Files and Urban Outfitters.

The Light Years collection will be out on August 15, with the range available at Monk House Design, Alice Euphemia and on the Light Years online store.

So unless you’re building a makeshift tent, it’s really time to throw away those granny panties. Even your grandma’s cooler than that.

Light Years 2012 from Light Years on Vimeo.

Light Years is available online from August 15.

lightyears.com.au

[taceyrychter-blog]

Interview: The Dandy Warhols

Published:Tone Deaf, 23 July 2012

It’s 2012 and the Dandy Warhols are still touring. Eighteen years after frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor (then just the one Taylor) met keyboardist Zia McCabe at a Starbucks, assured her that it didn’t matter that she couldn’t play an instrument and that she should definitely be in his band, the Dandys are still selling out shows.

Their ninth studio album This Machine dropped on April 24, and although the tracks are still steeped thick with their native Oregon grunge and their trademark wry humour, the album is a conscious step away from the sunny days of careless youth, drifting into darker territory and even leading several critics to use the word ‘gothic’ to describe its sound.

“I think that we probably feel like we’ve had some gothic elements in all of our albums,” says McCabe but I guess just because some of the tones are darker and the overall mood of some of the songs are a bit darker, and ‘goth’ is kind of an easy, ‘go-to’ genre word for a dark, emotional tone for music.”

McCabe explains that This Machine was partly a creative experiment for the band, for the first time relieving Taylor-Taylor of sole songwriting duties and instead compiling an album with writing efforts from the entire band.

“I’m very much a collaborator with music, and I think for Courtney it was a new thing,” she explains. “He’ll typically have the lyrics and the chord changes at least when he brings it to us… but this time he’d just really be open to whatever. We’d be up for anybody’s writing ideas on this record.”

“I thought it was exciting. I think that you can see some growing pains in the album because of that. From start to finish it doesn’t have that seamless feel, in my mind, that our past albums have had, and I attribute that to having so many collaborators. But I think that that’s something we can easily grow into and get a hang of better in the future, so it makes me excited for future recordings,” says the keyboardist.

One song on the album stands out as, to some critics, an uncomfortable question mark hovering over a band once known for their naked onstage antics, as members who are ageing into their forties.

In the self-deprecating ‘Enjoy Yourself,’ frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor admits, “I used to be cool” before a chorus of, “So look at yourself/ Enjoy your health.’ A Pitchfork reviewer suggested his exaggerated ‘Tim Curry-esque drawl’ implies that he’s singing in the voice of a character, but Zia is quick to dismiss the idea.

“He’s talking about himself and getting older and realising that looks fade, and what stuff isn’t permanent about youth and to not waste it. To me that was a really charming thing for someone that doesn’t have a small ego to write and I really like the honesty in that song.”

“I don’t know if it maybe made it a little easier for him to be so candid by using like you said a ‘character’s voice’, to get outside himself a little to perform it, maybe it’s intense to be that candid about yourself in that kind of way,” she muses.

“He’s just going ‘hey, I used to be really hot and really cool and kind of an asshole, and now I’m realising that I should have enjoyed it more’,” reveals McCabe. “Youth is wasted on the young, I think that’s how the saying goes…”

The band might be getting less naked these days, but they didn’t get picked to play the upcoming Harvest Festival for their calming presence. While the public can rattle off the Harvest lineup by heart, McCabe has no idea what she’s in for, preferring to be surprised by what’s on offer.

“I wander into things blind typically,” she says, “I barely look at who else is playing or what time we go on, or what stage until we get there, I don’t know why but that’s just the way I roll.” True to her casual word – when the line-up is spilled to McCabe in one, incoherent gasp of names, she approves a couple headliners, while others slip past without reaction.

“We’ve done some festivals with Beck,” she responds coolly, “I’m always curious to see what he’s up to, sometimes I’m not into it, sometimes I love it. But he’s been around as long as we have, longer, and still doing stuff. I don’t know what mark you have to pass, whether it’s the two year mark or the fifteen year mark to have a sense of camaraderie with any band that’s been around that long through the same time period as you; and hes kind of seen the same stuff. We’ve kind of lived some sort of parallel life, so of course I’m excited to see that.”

Anyone else that tickles her fancy? “Sigur Ros, I loved seeing them at festivals. I thought they were really boring when I saw them in Portland, so I’m excited to see them in a festival setting again, not in a cosy chair in a theatre where it’s too easy to fall asleep.”

After nearly two decades of the festival scene, McCabe admits she’s rarely fazed anymore by running into big names backstage.

“You never know when you’re going to get star struck and of course its always embarrassing ‘cause you didn’t expect it to happen, you thought you were cooler than that,” has the Dandy ever been caught out? “Really, the only time I’ve been star struck is when I met Willie Nelson. I just started crying and blubbering and hyperventilating, it was very embarrassing.”

Taking the opportunity to draw out Zia’s embarrassment a bit longer, we ask which Australian bands she’s into. “We get asked this in every foreign country and I never have a good answer. You know who I like that’s actually New Zealand, I really, really like Ruby Suns.”

We remind her that here substituting Kiwis for Australians is about as popular as confusing Canadians for Americans in the States.

“I know! I’m sorry, but that’s as close as I can get! The Morning After Girls are Australian right? They opened for us. I don’t listen to very much current music, so I’m not very good with even if people said what American band are you into right now, I wouldn’t even have a good answer. I would say, you know, I listen to a lot of Ray Charles, does that count?”

We’ll let it go, this time. At least McCabe’s being honest  - it’s that same ‘no bullshit’ attitude that’s allowed the Dandy Warhols to ride the alt-rock wave of the ‘90s right through to the shores of 2012 without bending to the frivolous fashions of each passing year.

“Our creed, our motto for being able to get through life on the road and just life in general is ‘when it’s good it’s fun, and when it’s bad it’s funny’ …and that’s really one of the main things that’s gotten us through, trying to not get hung up on the frustrating times and try and keep a good sense of humour on how bumpy life can be.”

This Machine is 0ut now through The End Records. The Dandy Warhols tour as part of Harvest Festival in November.

[taceyrychter-blog]

Will the Street Press Survive?

Published: Tone Deaf, 18 July 2012

So it’s all falling down around us. Across our country the presses are falling silent, jobs are flaking away in the thousands, surviving broadsheets are chopped to easy-to swallow tabloids; and one day the newsagent joins the ranks of irrelevantly-named institutions – along with the record shop and the video store.

It’s been a brutal couple of months, between the shock announcement of two printing plants and 1,900 jobs to be axed at Fairfax, editors of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald stepping down along with News Corp’s decision to split off its ailing publishing sector from its growing entertainment division. With the sudden closure of Brisbane street press Rave and the disappearance of Tasmania’s Sauce magazine, music lovers can’t help but be affected.

Even Scene magazine publisher Howard Duggan is far from surprised by the demise of Rave, assuring readers that they can expect more street presses to fold.

“It has been clear for quite a few years that the writing has been on the walls for print and it is simply a matter of time when all the titles are gone and the order that they disappear is of no consequence,” said Duggan.

The news was so grim that the managing director of Street Press Australia Craig Treweek felt he needed to issue a lengthy statement entitled ‘Rumours Of Our Death Are Grossly Exaggerated,’ a six point dissertation that essentially shouted ‘we’re not going anywhere.’

The article asserted that both print and digital are still relevant,  albeit if they adapted to the changing climate in a survival of the fittest. “Are times tough?” writes Treweek, “yes they are… but like any industry that suffers a decline, those that face the challenges head on and embrace them will survive.”

The very fact that Street Press Australia felt compelled to clarify their future in such a way should demonstrate enough the state of print media; and let’s not forget, while all the street press publications are now racing online after largely ignoring for years the opportunity they had to become the dominate voice online, how many digital publications are racing to open a street press?

‘It’s a bit sad’, we say. ‘I just like the feel of a paper’, we say. Then we read about it online. Because in reality, how many of you read all this news about the demise of print media actually – in a newspaper or in street press itself?

So is this really the end of print media? And what does that mean for music? What does a printless future really mean for artists, music journalists, and the fans?

Let’s start with the musos. Assuming you’d like to make it big someday, (or maybe just not be working at Athlete’s Foot trying to ignore the creeps that really enjoy having their feet touched) – let me ask you a question. If Rolling Stone and every other music mag were cleared from newsagents tomorrow, if you never tripped over a stack of Beat on a drunken walk home again – would you panic?

If you want exposure for your music, whether it’s an album review, an interview or a gig listing, digital trumps print in almost every way. Print can’t give you the same power to pinpoint your audience, to be so accessible worldwide, to interact immediately with your fans, and most importantly – to share your music.

The biggest blow really is a sentimental one. We all have different ideas of success, but is there satisfaction like seeing a shining mention of your band in real paper and ink? Or, in the words of Dr. Hook, there’s nothing like “the thrill that will getcha when you get your picture on the cover on the Rolling Stone.”

So what do the bare street stoops and empty magazine racks mean for music journalists? Do we really have to go and get real jobs?

Music websites and blogs have created endless possibilities for aspiring writers to get ‘an in’ as a contributor or an intern and start building a folio of work. The problem is that sufficiently paid writing opportunities beyond that are pretty limited.

With the amount of free content, how could it not be? Like music itself, the supply has radically outstripped demand, and the overflowing available content on blogs and websites has severely reduced the value of music writers.

In addition, the decline of paid writers combined with the sudden leap from localised print to competing globally online hasn’t meant great things for music journalism. The pressure to be first on the newsfeed has spurred the rise of ‘churnalism’ – a trend of scrambling to publish unoriginal content in an attempt to keep up with other news websites.

Often this means sacrificing proper research and fact-checking in order to publish quickly. This is the reality faced by all news media – time pressures and financial constraints means less original, thoughtful, and investigative content and a dependency on competitors and PR press releases for news.

And before you all jump down our throats, of course Tone Deaf is not immune from these pressures. But as the 24 hour news cycle slowly becomes the norm for music journalism, which has been long protected by the weekly if not monthly print cycle of street press and magazines, is it any wonder that the wider audience is beginning to see print media as sluggish and increasingly irrelevant?

After all, half the pages are filled with news that’s a week old, but that shouldn’t be a reflection on the writers, it’s merely a reflection on the inability of the format to keep up pace with the changing expectations of readers who want everything, available immediately.

It mustn’t be just the readers who are seeing the format as increasingly on the margin – the real decline going on is of course a decline in advertising spending, brought on no doubt by the music industry’s slowly increasing apathy towards a format struggling to remain relevant.

It’s interesting that news and music journalism are both plagued by the same problems – job cuts, shifting media platforms, recycled content. The fear of the changes in news journalism is a threat to democratic values. But in music criticism, we’ve found the opposite effect – the move to online has cut out the journalistic middleman, returned the voice to the people, and allowed popularity to be dictated by an aggregation of the masses.

The accessibility of blogs means that now anyone who can listen to music can write about it and potentially be counted. Music does need the authority of incisive and experienced journalists, but arguably, the most important input comes from the fans – the ones who listen to music, who talk music, who sit at their laptops for hours and write about it without a thought of getting paid for it.

The very same passionate fans who fuel the content of street press pages nationwide, and the same writers who – if they haven’t already – will make the migration to online media.

So what about you, the reader? If street presses disappear, would you really struggle to entertain yourself while waiting for your latte? How often do you read a magazine cover-to-cover anyway? Preferring to pick the articles you’re actually interested in, just as you would a website. And most importantly, online is free. Things should be free, right? Look at Facebook, Twitter, Google, news, music, TV.

It’s an impossible scenario we’ve demanded, and it’s found a way to sustain itself – on us.

There was a meme that made the rounds a few years back, showing a picture of two pigs in a barn. One says to the other, ‘Isn’t this great? We don’t have to pay for the barn. Even the food is free!’ The caption down the bottom says it all – ‘If you’re not paying for it, you’re not the customer. You’re the product being sold.’

So maybe this is the future. We get our free lunch, as long as those companies can pick a little off us here and there. Our demands are now personalised and instantaneous, something the sluggish, mass-produced print media will – by its inherent nature – always struggle with.

So can print media really survive? And do we really care beyond sentimental attachment?

Honestly, we don’t believe that we will see the complete demise of print media for at least a while. What we’re witnessing is a radical shift, a once dominant medium squeezing to the demands of a niche one in a very short time-frame.

There is room for existence, but not variety. For example, Brisbane couldn’t sustain four music street presses, it certainly was no longer financially viable for Rave. Perhaps for a while we’ll see cities carrying one, maybe two street presses, but they too will have to answer difficult questions about their relevance in years to come.

Fairfax has been forced to move to a one-newsroom model to be able to share content amongst its different mastheads. They are harsh decisions to make, but it means survival.

We also know that just because a medium has been overtaken by technology doesn’t mean that it will disappear completely. CDs and books still have their place, and you only need to look at the dogmatic resurgence of vinyl to know that physical isn’t extinct.

Whether it’s newspapers or iPads – they will all fade away in time. Even stone engravers had to pack up their chisels once. So what? Journalism and music are integral to human civilisation, democracy, culture, identity and life. Writing and art are intertwined, and will continue to thrive and support each other in one format or another.

But maybe we’d like to drunkenly trip over stacks of street presses for a little while longer. Besides, you can’t toilet train your dog with an iPad.

Although there’s probably an app for that.

[taceyrychter-blog]

Album Review: Confess (2012)

Published: Tone Deaf, 13 July 2012

  It’s a tough mission to make the 80s cool again.

Sure, Degrassi Junior High and anything with John Hughes is safe territory, but navigating your way around the frizzy mullets, fluoro-lycra camel toes and terribly green-screened video clips can be highly treacherous.

Twin Shadow, aka George Lewis Jr, has dived deep into the decade and emerged with Confess – an album that distils the raw greatness of 80s. Not just the huge pop melodies, but the characteristic overblown melodrama that fuelled its songs and films.

Inspired by a motorbike crash with his friend on board, Lewis Jr. revealed, “I remember in that moment I wanted to say everything to him. How could I say everything in a split second? How could I bury my words in his heart?”

It’s theatrical and hyperromantic – every word is urgent, every decision is made inches from the highway – and Confess is its soundtrack.

Confess draws us in right from the start with ‘Golden Light’, the first few bars of warm synth like first sunlight creeping over the highway in the still of early morning, gradually building anticipation until the song peaks with commanding marching drums.

There are smattering of the decade’s influence throughout, ‘Run My Heart’ reminiscent of Springsteen’s ‘Dancing in the Dark’, while ‘The One’ smacks of Smiths-era Morrissey with the rhythmic style of George Michael’s ‘Faith’.

Although the spectres of his influences float from track to track, the songs are too strong and well-produced to feel entirely derivative.

The stand-out track, of course, is the blogged-to-death ‘Five Seconds’ – an explosive, highly-addictive track trembling with a dire life-or-death passion. The hook is deadly, the drums beat with the urgency of a virginal geek on prom night, and that gap of silence before the chorus breaks is right before the jock kisses her under the disco ball.

[taceyrychter-blog]

Willow & Blake

Published: Milk Bar Mag, 10 July 2012

Willow & Blake is all about writing – good writing. The three founders – Bree Johnson, Erika Geraerts, and Jess Hatzis – strip down the dusty confines of ‘traditional’ writing and approach their craft with the sincerity and frankness of a fresh sheet of paper.

Their blog is a love letter to friends, strangers, and neighbours; a motley collage of the pedestrians in our lives. The faceless come into focus, their stories collecting on the website like portraits hanging on a wall. An ex-lover. The mysterious Truck Man who lives next door. An older Greek gentleman with broken English.

“We come into contact with hundreds of people all the time, and you would look at them or see them in a café every day, or pass them on the street or stare at them on the train, and that’s all you see or know of them – yet they are experiencing heartache, excitement, opportunities, friendships, everything that we do, but they’re living it in another world. We find that fascinating.”

Most writers would give anything for a decent byline, but at Willow & Blake ego is set aside. ‘I’s’ are exchanged for ‘we’s’ to form one collective voice.

“We love that Willow & Blake is anonymous,” they say. “There’s also a stereotype attached to 20-something female writers, like that whole Carrie Bradshaw bullshit. We didn’t want people to have any idea in their head about what it was until they read it. We wanted the words to speak for themselves.”

They’ve also found that removal of the ego creates space for honest writing. “It’s not about you, it’s about the person you’re writing about.”

And if you do find yourself under the point of Willow & Blake’s pen, don’t expect to be decorated with glitter macaroni.

“We don’t like how people glorify people in articles…Melbourne is inundated with creative people, but the people who are really good at what they do are quite humble about it, they would never stand there and be like, ‘yeah, I’m the fucking best artist in the world, or I’m the best writer.’ So why should you speak about them that way?”

“At the end of the day, they’re a person. We could write about a photographer but never once mention photography because people are so much more than just their career.”

Make friends with strangers at willowandblake.com.

[taceyrychter-blog]

Susan Trigg Launches Art Scarves

Published: Milk Bar Mag, 26 June 2012

  There’s a lot more wrapped in a scarf than first meets the eye.

Or at least, Susan Trigg thinks so. With a background in photography, digital art and textiles, it made sense for Trigg to pool all her passions together for one purpose. That purpose, it turned out, was scarves.

“I think they’re such a lovely garment, and silk scarves are so beautiful to wear against your skin. They’re just a gorgeous thing to wrap around your neck, around your waist, drape it off a handbag, so many things you can do with scarves.”

The North Fitzroy-based photographer has just launched a series of ‘art scarves’, created by printing her digital art designs on a series of limited-run silk scarves.

At a distance her designs seem abstract, but to look closely reveals much more. The prints are actually made through a process of layering her photographs that she has taken both in Melbourne and during her world travels.

“I try and mimic the way you might layer a painting…you build up layers and you let it dry, and you go back and do another layer and bits of the previous one can show through. I’m doing that in a digital sense.”

The final effect is a compounding of richness and textures, matching grunge with elegance, then brought to life with the physical movement of a fashion garment.

With a strong commitment to sustainability, Trigg Designs ensures all printing and finishing is done in Australia on 100% biodegradable silk.

“I’d like to start people questioning the whole notion of ‘fast fashion’. We are consuming more fashion that’s really good for us and good for the planet. I’d like to see us stepping back to what our grandparents did of having pieces that last; buying good quality, if possible supporting our local industry, and buying pieces that you can keep loving for years, and re-purpose them.”

Susan Trigg’s scarves are available at susantrigg.com while stocks last.

[taceyrychter-blog]

Dwarf actors paid to party: a little demeaning, or a hire calling?

Published: The Sunday Age 10 June 2012

Photo: Meredith O'Shea

MINI-ME hurries down Church Street, Richmond, his grey shoulder pads darkening with the heavy rain. At the door of a busy nightspot, he stops.

A statuesque woman in knee-high white boots and a red afro bends to take his hand and leads him through the public bar to an upstairs function room where a sea of Austin Powers characters swallow him up - but also give him context.

Guests part to let him through, some take his picture, others have a good laugh.

It's all part of the job, says Blake Johnston, who can otherwise be found dressed as an elf, a leprechaun, one of Snow White's seven dwarfs or whatever else he's been hired for.

Blake set up his agency, Dwarf My Party, in 2009 and it is now one of three in Melbourne specialising in short-statured entertainment. With gigs ranging from corporate do's, television appearances, kids' parties or anything that demands an entertainer with dwarfism (a genetic disorder characterised by limited skeletal growth), the agency is kept busy throughout the summer party season.

"Parties like these need an icebreaker," Blake says, pointing to himself. "That's what we do."

He's a hit with the party guests, dancing with them, posing for photographs, joining in the fun.

"I hired him because I thought it would add something a bit different and interesting to your regular party," says the woman with the afro, who organised the party for her husband.

"It's not just because he's a dwarf, it's that he's an entertaining performer, and he's making that money from it, so good on him.''

After two hours Blake shakes hands, smiles, and goes home with $300 in his pocket. Standing at 124 centimetres, he has found a way to make being "a bit different" a positive experience as well as a profitable one.

"You get your confidence up with this type of work, because people pat you on the back going, 'You're doing a great job,' '' he says. "I'm proud, and I'm very comfortable with what I do."

But not everyone accepts dwarf-for-hire as ethical entertainment.

Sam Drummond, a short-statured law graduate and producer at 3AW, links dwarf entertainment agencies with brutal acts of disrespect, such as dwarf-throwing incidents.

"Dwarf-tossing is an end result," he says. "It's all based on a public perception of short people that comes from some members of the short-statured community who put themselves out there for, basically, humiliation for hire."

Mr Drummond says that dwarf-specific agencies are "not far away from prostitution", as he claims that the entertainers are not being hired for skill or personality, but merely for a feature they were born with.

Historically, dwarfs have suffered centuries of objectification, exploitation and ridicule. "Society's come a fair way in that I can go and make the living that I want to, but that hasn't been all that easy," Mr Drummond says.

And he fears dwarf entertainment agencies could undo all the hard work. "It doesn't help when someone from that party sees another short-statured person on the street the next day and yells out, 'Hey, it's Mini-Me,' '' he says.

Meredith Tripp, president of the Short-Statured People of Australia, says the community is divided on the issue. Personally, she has no problem with the concept of dwarfs for hire, as they are simply using their unique stature to advantage.

Performing in character is acceptable, she says, but ''if you're going because you're seen as funny because of your physical difference, and people are there to laugh at you, that's what I have a problem with".

However, dwarf entertainers argue that their work is helping to break down stereotypes.

Jeremy Hallam of Dwarfsome Entertainment combats scepticism by allowing hard work and talent to speak for itself. "When we go do these events, I'm educating people and showing them that I'm … actually an entertainer who has practised his art, learnt skills and talents, and choreographed routines just like any other entertainer would," he says.

Married couple Mick and Deb Connors moonlight with talent agency A Short Act. "All we've ever fought for is equality of life and to be treated as normal," says Mick, who also works as a kitchenhand. "What I'm about is … enjoying life because we're only here for a short time. Pardon the pun."